FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual [Paperback]

Susan Prosser (Author), Geoff Coffey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The FileMaker Pro 10 desktop database lets you do almost anything with the information you give it -- especially with this book as your guide. Clear, thorough, and accessible, FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual helps you get in, build your database, and get the results you need, whether you're running a business, pursuing a hobby, or planning your retirement. It's the ideal guide for non-technical and experienced folks alike.

Each chapter in this fully updated edition covers the latest timesaving features of FileMaker Pro 10, including saved finds and a redesigned toolbar that reveals information and features more clearly than ever. You'll learn how to import information from the new Bento consumer database (Mac only), write scripts to make your database even easier to use, and send email without leaving FileMaker.

With this book, you will:

• Get your first database running in minutes and perform basic tasks right away
• Catalog people, processes, and things with streamlined data entry and sorting tools
• Use your data to generate reports, correspondence, and other documents with ease
• Create, connect, and manage multiple tables and set up complex relationships that display just the data you need
• Crunch numbers, search text, or pin down dates and times with dozens of built-in formulas
• Outfit your database for the Web, and import and export data to other formats

You'll also get objective advice on which features are really useful, and which aren't. To make the most of this database, you need FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual -- the book that should have been in the box.

About the Author

Susan Prosser is a reformed journalist who's stopped trying to bring information to the people and now helps them manage the data they already have. Susan is a FileMaker Certified Developer and has developed FileMaker databases for 12 years, but returns to her roots by training and writing curriculum for other developers.

Geoff Coffey has been helping people solve problems with FileMaker Pro for over 10 years. He is a partner at Six Fried Rice (http://sixfriedrice.com/), a FileMaker Pro consulting and training firm based in Phoenix, Arizona. Six Fried Rice brings the power and simplicity of FileMaker Pro to individuals, workgroups, enterprise, and the web through world-class training, expert advice, and custom development. He lives in downtown Phoenix with his wife of 14 years and his two daughters, Isabel (9) and Sophia (5). If you're a FileMaker fan, you can reach Geoff any time at [e-mail].

Product Details

• Paperback: 832 pages
• Publisher: Pogue Press; 1 edition (January 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596154232
• ISBN-13: 978-0596154233
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #303,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book won't end up as a doorstop or a climbing platform for your cat(s), November 3, 2007

By	R. Stuart "A 21st Century Man" (Post Falls, ID United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

I've been using FileMaker Pro for over ten years now, pretty much creating simple databases and runtime solutions for myself and fellow workers.

Earlier this year, however, I was commissioned to create a safety-related database (runtime solution) for none other than FedEx and its nine feeder-carriers. Talk about instant panic-attack! When I found out that I'd be the authoring it I immediately perused Amazon.com and bookstores for books that would help me get up to speed very quickly so I could start coding away; I ordered an armful of them, some were "bible" and "idiot"-titled tomes and others were so "up there" technically that my eyes glazed over just reading their Table of Contents. More often than not they made me feel dense because there weren't enough explanations or examples in them for me to fully understand what was trying to be explained.

The book I ended up using the most--and really appreciating its real-world use and easy-to-understand explanations--was "FileMaker Pro 8, The Missing Manual" by Geoff Coffey and Susan Prosser. I can honestly say without any hyperbole that their book, and downloadable practice files, gave me a solid foundation to work from so I could build the database. After some finishing touches supplied by FileMaker developer Matt Lygo of kantala.com, I submitted the database to FedEx...and they LOVED it--so much so I earned their prestigious BZ Award for Excellence.

Since then, I've been working on another project that requires much greater power and flexibility than what FileMaker 8 or 8.5 had to offer, so after upgrading to FileMaker 9.0 _the_ first book I bought was Coffey and Prosser's Missing Manual book for FileMaker 9.0. Still a winner, I'm reading it as both a refresher and to learn the new powers that come with 9.0. It's both time and money well-spent.

So, if you're looking for a book to get you going in FileMaker, make this one your first choice; you'll be glad you did.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So much more than a "Missing Manual.", October 21, 2007

By	John E. Wolff (Hamilton, NZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

This book is now in it's third writing. The first one (for Filekaker 7) never got printed as the release of Filemaker 8 made so many improvements to the software that a revision was mandatory. Nevertheless that early writing served its purpose as the precursor for the previous edition of this book on FileMaker 8. That edition was a real eye opener for me as it taught me so much more about the program than I had ever appreciated after many years of use. Now we have, what is in effect a third writing, for the latest version of FileMaker Pro and the benefit of those previous versions is certainly evident.

These authors have an excellent style of writing for a technical product like FileMaker Pro -- the style is both readable and accurate with plenty of light hearted quips to provide a delightful human touch to what could otherwise become fairly dreary tome. The book is thus not only a very readable tutorial on the methodology for setting up a relational database, but it also has a multitude of advice on ways to ensure that your development will follow guidelines for best practice. Explanations of "The FileMaker Way" are thus easy to follow and also display the authors' comprehensive knowledge of the program. This undoubtedly stems from their own credible work as practising FMP developers in their own right.

Some professional database gurus seem to take pleasure in deriding FileMaker for its simplicity of use and seeming inability to scale for enterprise tasks. What they overlook is that FileMaker is evolving into a data hub with its ability to exchange data so readily with an increasing number of other file formats. I can see how some of these folk will not find this book so useful as a reference work. It has not been written to be used in that way. If you come from a computer science training in DBMS, then you are only going to use Filemaker effectively if you take sufficient time to understand how and why FileMaker is different. The Missing Manual can certainly help you to achieve that but its style may not be as appropriate for your needs as it is for the database user who now wants to develop databases for their own projects.

In summary then, this book is certainly a manual "that should have been in the box" but it makes no claims to being the only source of FileMaker knowledge that you will ever need. There are plenty of other resources to meet that need but I firmly believe you will be hard pressed to find any other text or resource that can match this "Missing Manual" for its comprehensive introduction to FileMaker Pro..

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FILEMAKER 9 .. MISSING MANUAL, November 25, 2007

By	David Mayer - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

The book is as massive and complete as Filemaker 9 software. I found that it was at first intimidating because of the 750 + pages but after you dive in and learn to use the index the book because a lifesaver and close companion. I highly recommend it to anyone trying to use this powerful program.